New Year's Poem 2018

[Anonymoose]

TRADITIONS!
Disclaimer: Translations are amateur. Please correct me if anything seems amiss.

ENGLISH

As destiny in the whim of gods,
So history is the whim of men.
How the fallen rise and risen fall.
All shall be the subjects of my pen.
—From an anacronistic journal, author unknown

JAPANESE

運命を紡ぐは　天の御業なれど
(Threads of) Destiny Spinning　　The (Divine) Work of the Heavens

歴史を紡ぐは　人の業なり
(Threads of History) Spinning　　The Work of Humans

望まれて還りし者　望まれど還らざる者
Those who should return　　Those who should not return

我　その交わりを記す者なり
Me　　The chronicler of that intersection

GERMAN

Unsere Geschicke lenkt der Himmel
Our destiny is directed by the heavens

Die Heldentaten vollbringen wir
The heroic accomplishments are ours

Krieger, die gingen, und Krieger, die blieben
Warriors who have gone, Warriors who remain

Ihre Geschichten, die leset hier
Your histories, read (gleaned) here.

Aus "Alte Legenden new erzahlt"
From "Old Legends Newly Recounted"

FRENCH

Si la Fortune est décidée par les Cieux.
If Destiny is decided by the Heavens

L'historie est quant à elle écrite par les Hommes.
History is written by Man.

De ceux enfin revenus ou restés disparus,
Of those who at last return or remain missing,

Je me fais le chroniquer des destines croisés
I am the chronicler of crossed fates.

Nouvelles chroniques des temps anciens
New chronicles of ancient times

CONSOLIDATED GUESS AT DISAMBIGUATION

Fate is for the Divine to decide (All as meant to be).
History is for man to enscribe (Rife with inaccuracy).
Nations rise and fall, their people live and die, but the narrative is up to me.

Knee-jerk first impressions, it seems like one of those multi-meaning ones.
The next New Year's poem is coming in, say, 4.5. Until then, we've got:

• The majority of Ivalice. (Clearly "a new version of old history")
• Doma's four lords, which seem to be but are not guaranteed to be deiforms (falsely remembered history incarnate)
• Ala Mhigo and the Garlean Empire (dramatic riff)
• The Ascians which, while on hold, exhibit this theme pretty much all the time.
• Specifically, Eldibus and his "I body-snatched Zenos, but maybe it's a red herring." movements.

In conclusion, #GaiusLives. <immediately goes down in a hail of popotofire>

[Kuroka]

Sounds... interresting... i hope its not just from Gosetsu and company...

[Enkidoh]

Well, I'm terrible with guessing what these cryptic messages from Ferne's pen mean,.... but anyway

The first two lines are suspiciously similar to Vayne's whole ramble in FFXII about "putting the reigns of history back into the hands of man"... and.. well... we do now have the Return to Ivalice raid....

*puts on darksteel foil hat*

"Fallen rise"? Hmmm, Well, the 'fallen' is obviously Ala Mhigo and Doma (and perhaps Rabanastre now as well), but "risen fall"? A hint the Empire is about to reach it's Indian Summer perhaps? (Sorry Theodoric... but it looks like Garlemald's days are numbered... or not... ).

And that final line? And the 'from an anachronistic journal'? Is that deliberate leaning on the fourth wall I see there? After all, the Rising events have increasingly done just that (putting the player's character actually in the development team's offices and sending them into the server architecture to 'debug the game'), and even one of the minions taps the fourth wall (the Wind Up Cursor fittingly)... so.... is this a hint the player's character, is not who they seem to be?

*Breathes in and takes off darksteel foil hat*

Regardless, this is probably the most cryptic and interesting New Year's Poem yet.

Either way, I can't wait to see what 2018 has in store for us.

[Belhi]

I really don't have anything. It is vague enough to really leave me clueless.

This kind of sounds to me like we will be discovering some historical truth. Maybe its just Ivalice but my impression was these little hints generally referenced the MSQ. Maybe it has to do with the nature of the past, maybe the echo, the Warriors of Light and maybe the nature of the conflict between Hydealyn and Zodiark?

Yeah I don't know.

[Theodric]

My theory:

The Emperor will likely be killed after refusing to place his complete and utter trust in Elidibus, I feel. We've seen how quickly Elidibus discards his 'allies' on numerous occasions by this point and since the Emperor is a tactician and someone who commands the loyalty of countless people I doubt that Elidibus intends to leave him be - especially after what the Archbishop of Ishgard did to the Ascians 'manipulating' him. After the Emperor is dealt with, Elidibus will then either take on Varis' appearance or Zenos' appearance. Most likely the latter.

Knowing that Zenos is dead and buried the Warrior of Light would almost certainly want to get to the root of the issue. I suspect the mysterious figure we see showing frustration in 4.1's end scene will be a high ranking Pureblood Garlean who comes to learn of the chaos brewing in Garlemald and travels to the Garlean Consulate in Kugane to meet with the Warrior of Light. Given that 'Return to Ivalice' pretty much shows that the Warrior of Light is willing to work with Garleans I do not think it is too much of a stretch, especially since - presumably - the Warrior of Light has no intention of letting Garlemald as a whole get destroyed by Elidibus' manipulation.

Elidibus, on his part, cannot afford an alliance to form between the Warrior of Light and Garlemald.

Still, I believe it was stated in an interview that it won't be Ascians behind Garlemald - but everything we've seen so far implies that is the case to some extent simply due to Elidibus' presence in Garlemald.

As for other issues, perhaps the poem is tied to multiple story points. Perhaps some of the characters who came back from the 'dead' should not have come back from the 'dead' and it will come to turn out to be a bad thing? Yotsuyu is the prime suspect there.

[Ghastly]

For me this is all about viera, just from the meaning of the word anacronistic

"an error in chronology in which a person, object, event, etc., is assigned a date or period other than the correct one"
They wouldn't make one about viera next year since we'll know about them this year (fanfest) so they're preparing us for when they're revealed around 4.4 or so like Yugiri and Au ra reveal.
That's my guess but it connects interesting dots

[Keever]

"Anachronistic" here means something from a different time period - here "an anachronistic journal" basically means a journal from long ago. This is how it would most often be used in real life. If I went to a flash ultramodern restaurant and they served me in antique china cups, that would be anachronistic. It's not just a term used about fiction.

[Ghastly]

Yet the poem talks about history and destiny.
It all connects considering all we've seen about Ivalice has been a history, a past, and we even go back to the ruins of Lesalia.

To say the dots don't connect is not being objective.
The discussion we can have is if it's stated as 100% fact that it means viera or not. No one's saying it's 100%, someone (me) is saying that it does connect from a hypothetical way.

[Belhi]

It could just be about Return to Ivalice. That would make sense. It could also mean that an assumed truth about the history of Hydealyn is wrong because those who got to record the histories did so in such a way that meant it was recorded false. Reminds me about our discovery of the truth behind the Dragonsong war.

I still feel that things will firmly be moving towards Garlemald from here to the expansion. The big question for me is what machinations lead us there. The 4.X patches are clearly dealing with the fallout of the liberation but beyond that I am not yet seeing a meta plot that leads to what comes next forming.

[Ceasaria]

"L'histoire est quant à elle écrite par les Hommes."
The Histories are written by Man.

It's singular not plural.

History is written by Man.

(not sure if we should remove the "The").


For this poem, I think it's related to Ivalice.